


The Box

by pauperscribe



Category: Donald Strachey Mysteries (Movies)
Genre: M/M, POV Timothy Callahan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-18
Updated: 2014-10-18
Packaged: 2018-02-21 15:31:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2473292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pauperscribe/pseuds/pauperscribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Boxes are important things, some moreso than others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Box

We all have one, each and every one of us, that box that hides our secrets, our memories and sometimes our pain; some are metaphorical boxes inside the human psyche while others are quite concrete. Donald, of course, being the solid, literal man that I love, had a very solid wooden box. It sat in the top drawer of the nightstand on his side of the bed from the day we moved in together. He thought he was alone in the room when he placed it there, but I happened to be coming in from the bathroom as he pulled it out of his duffel bag. I didn’t say anything about it, but with time, I came to be able to predict when he would pull it out.

I watched as he carefully repacked it for the move to our new house, the last thing to be taken out of his nightstand and the first thing put in the new one. His introspective, almost reverent demeanor reminded me of the ceremony used by the British Navy over the centuries for transferring the flag from one ship of the line to another when the Captain changed commands. This was his flag, his altar, his shrine to what had been. I never knew, until the night Larry Phelps was killed, that it was also a reliquary, containing the ashes of the sweet innocent blush of first love crushed to death in a horribly wrenching way that left him weeping in my arms so many years after the fact.


End file.
